First cheese board/cutting board

Here is one of 3 cheese boards/light cutting boards I made as Christmas gifts. I had already wrapped the other 2 when it occurred to me I had no pictures. The boards measure roughly 8” x 10” and are about 5/8” thick. All the pieces are glued with Titebond III. The face grain strips and the strips of end grain blocks are attached with biscuits to reinforce the joints. The boards were finished with 3 coats of Howard Butcher Block Conditioner per bottle instructions. That really brought out the grain and provides a lustre not visible in the photo.

On this one the outer edge is birch, then maple, then oak. The end grain chunks in the middle are a mix of locust, sycamore, maple, oak, hickory, pine and maybe some poplar and ash. All of this wood was from either downed trees/branches in the neighborhood or salvaged from pallets. All three had the same design but the mix of woods was slightly different—one even had strips of quarter sawn sycamore and tulip poplar which were very nice.

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3 comments so far

You have made some interesting and creative designs from what most people would call fire wood. I like them!

My experience tells me that those center cut tree limb pieces are going to develop gaps from expansion and contraction problems, along with some splitting; possibly exacerbated by the mixture of different wood types that all move in varying amounts. It will be interesting to see them in a year.

Redryder, I am hoping you are correct. All of the woods were dry and had been sitting around the shop for a while so hopefully that will reduce movement. I’m glad you like the design. It makes use of readily available woods in an appealing way. If these stay together I will make up a few for sale at next year’s church Bazaar. Hopefully they will find an audience.

LesB—there is a big part of me that fears you will be correct. Everything says that this type of glue up should face major tensions and could split. I have seen other boards like this one, but they were new and I have no idea what it will be like a year from now.

I will try to remember to get a look at the boards a year or so from now. Since they are gifts to family, chances are I will hear if something goes wrong.